Space experts celebrate satellite's 30 years in orbit

The satellite built in Guildford was launched in March 1984 and its transmissions can still be picked up by scientists on Earth

Sir Martin Sweeting, SSTL chairman, with a handheld Digitalker unit, used with the satellite.

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Space experts in Guildford are marking the 30th anniversary of one of the first satellites built in the town being in orbit.

The UoSAT-2 satellite was launched in March 1984 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the USA.

It was the second of 41 missions launched by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), based at the research park in Guildford.

It still transmits its VHF (very high frequency) telemetry on an 11-day cycle, and the on-board clock still tells the time.

“The satellite’s batteries are exhausted after 160,000 charge cycles, and transmissions are now detectable only when there is sunlight, but the telemetry continues to be tracked by amateur radio satellite enthusiasts (AMSAT) worldwide – using the predictable transmissions to help calibrate their equipment,” a spokesman from SSTL said.

“Following the successful first microsatellite launch of UoSAT-1 from the Surrey team in 1981, NASA again offered a second launch opportunity – but with only six months’ warning.

“Rising to the challenge and literally working day and night, the Surrey team, comprising about a dozen researchers and AMSAT members, designed and built the 70kg UoSAT-2 microsatellite just in time for a launch as ‘piggyback’ passenger with NASA’s LANDSAT-5.”

The satellite carried with it experiments considered novel at the time, including magnetometers, a Geiger tube and a sensitive microphone to detect micro-meteoroid impacts.

In the days before global positioning systems, the satellite also acted as a communications system for the 1988 Canadian and Soviet ski-trek Arctic expedition.

The group featured explorers from Canada and the USSR who crossed the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Ward Hunt Island, near Canada, via the North Pole between March and June 1988.

The position of the skiers’ emergency beacon was calculated daily by US and Soviet ground stations, relayed to the Surrey mission control station, and then uploaded to the UoSAT-2’s Digitalker, which provided the latitude and longitude of the ski party.

“In a sun-synchronous, 650km low Earth orbit, UoSAT-2 flew over the pole every 98 minutes, at which point the group could receive the broadcast from the satellite using their small handheld VHF radio that was designed to work at very low temperatures,” the spokesman said.

“UoSAT-2 was one of the first satellites to prove that commercial-grade microprocessors and memory chips, which had only just become readily available, mass-produced and cheaper in the early 80s as part of the microcomputer revolution, could be used to build small and cost-effective yet capable satellites.

“Today, UoSAT-2 is the longest-serving of 13 satellites that SSTL and Surrey Space Centre track from ground stations in Guildford.”